Millennium and its Impact on the Legal Industry
It seems to be a constant struggle between the traditional and the new, united only by technology. However, delimiting the generation of thousands of lawyers as technology magnets is not to be aware of what this generation represents, and more importantly, the changes that it matters in the legal world.
In the past Legaltech Summit held on 22 November, several exhibitors identified that lawyers and thousands of customers have a significant impact on the legal industry, and that, on the one hand, the thousands of lawyers causes a prevailing need for change in talent retention techniques within legal studies, and on the other hand, the millennial client brings with him the urgent need to change the traditional legal business model.
On the last panel, Antonio Leal, Director of Adam Smith (NY) and Jorge Muñiz, founding partner of the study Muñiz, Olaya, Melendez, Castro, Ono & Herrera (PE) they put forward in a timely manner, that changes within the legal studies, must not only focus on the implementation of the latest technology, but, that success falls in those organizations that are able to evolve in time, becoming more modern and more intelligent; in those flexible organizations that look well at diversity in their human capital.
The millennial lawyers are becoming increasingly demanding regarding the selection of the place they want to work and what they expect from their employers. The millennial lawyer seeks and demands better working hours, allowing you to work to live and not to live to work, seeks recognition when you have done your job well, gender equality, innovative organisations and inclusive and technology-efficient forms of work, just to mention a few examples.
The young professional not only occupies technology as a means of communication, but mostly uses it for process automation and for making his work more efficient and effective. As Jorge Villalón, Director of Digital Transformation of the UAI on the artificial intelligence panel, "the lawyer of the future not only knows how to handle the machines, but also knows how to be efficient with them."
Andrés Arellano, CEO of Lemontech, he also said that the professional hours spent on administrative work are high and could be reduced by the incorporation of new processes and forms of work in order to avoid repetitive and uncognitive work. In this sense, the lawyer of the future knows how he could optimize his time and that of his peers, only those above in the chain of command do not ask him how he can do it, at least not in companies that operate vertically.
These legal studies or companies under the classic traditional vertical model (referred to as Big Law by authors such as Marc Galanter, Thomas M Palay and George Beaton) believe that the participation of a young lawyer to optimizing process implementation is "unnecessary" because, in your experience, the partner or lawyer Senior has been doing this for 20 years and it has always worked, so there is no need to change it now. In the face of this, the millennial lawyer has no choice but to raise his eyebrows in surprise, as his participation door has immediately been closed.
The thousands and then the Z generation want to be part of the processes, want to work, want to propose, execute and create. In the end, the process of generational adaptation has come to stay and not only refers to incorporating technology into your company, but also requires listening to and incorporating these new generations, or in other words in technological language: to download and install the latest update made by Millennium.
Camila Reyes, Advisor in Alster Legal